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Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 18, 2013

'Sayonara Speed Tribes': Documentary chronicles disappearing world of bosozoku

Once a symbol of a burgeoning postwar counterculture, the bōsōzoku are fading. Gone are the days when gangs of bikers would zoom through neighborhoods with daredevil temerity.
Japan Times
WORLD
Apr 17, 2013

U.S. program secretly feeding Syrians

In the heart of rebel-held territory in Syria's northern province of Aleppo, a small group of intrepid Westerners is undertaking a mission of great stealth. Living anonymously in a small rural community, they travel daily in unmarked cars, braving airstrikes, shelling and the threat of kidnapping to...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 17, 2013

It's the end of everything as we know it (perhaps)

I hope you had it while you could because, last week, sex ended.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 17, 2013

Lose your house, collect $300

The U.S. government's settlement of the foreclosure scandal shows how things work in America: The criminals get the big payoffs and the people whose lives they destroyed get $300.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 16, 2013

Beijing bird flu case asymptomatic

Bird flu was found in a 4-year-old Beijing boy who shows no symptoms of the infection, health authorities said, suggesting more people may be catching the H7N9 influenza virus than reported.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Apr 14, 2013

Late Chavez haunts Venezuela's election

In Venezuela's brief but raucous presidential campaign, the ruling party has let Hugo Chavez do the talking. On state television, he provides words of wisdom in frequent ads, and loudspeakers at campaign rallies belt out recordings of him singing the national anthem.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 12, 2013

'Nutty' U.S. researcher champions oddball science

Patricia Brennan received $384,949 from the U.S. government to study duck genitalia. Last month, that made her a national joke. Now, it's made her a little bit of a folk hero.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 12, 2013

Beware economists who peddle cute models

A study that mimicked the behavior of 2 million potential homeowners makes plausible assumptions about how the U.S. subprime crisis got started.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 10, 2013

Keeping it simple isn't an act for Pope Francis

Organized religion is often defined by specific do's and don'ts. Now comes Pope Francis with his emphasis on being humble and helping those who hurt.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / OUR MAN IN TOKYO
Apr 9, 2013

British ambassador laments his two 'lost decades'

Tim Hitchens, the new British ambassador to Japan, has observed with his own eyes the country's economic transition since he first visited here as a teenager back in the 1970s.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 9, 2013

Comparing tobacco fight to the Opium Wars

The struggle against tobacco is not being won. It is being relocated from industrialized countries to the developing world.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Apr 6, 2013

One man's crusade against America's war on drugs

Once consigned to the fringes of libertarianism, the argument for the legalization of drugs has received an unlikely boost in America in recent months with the release of a documentary titled "The House I Live In." Coinciding with the decision by the states of Colorado and Washington to legalise marijuana,...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Apr 6, 2013

Technology titans raise millions to enter politics

One day in February about 40 noisy protesters gathered outside the home of Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg in Palo Alto in California's Silicon Valley. They chanted slogans and held up signs as a small, select group of people arrived in sleek sports cars and were ushered inside the relatively modest...
EDITORIALS
Apr 5, 2013

Abe government honors sluggers

The Abe government helps get Japan's pro baseball season started by conferring the People's Honor Award on two Giant sluggers a generation apart.
CULTURE / Music / MONEY AND MUSIC
Apr 4, 2013

Barakan wants InterFM to dial down the talk

While station-surfing on my car radio several years back, I chanced upon a program about Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page. The disc jockey said Page's solo in "Stairway to Heaven" was among his best.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Apr 3, 2013

Local government attempts to make citizens rat on welfare recipients

Welfare recipients made to feel guilty for guilty pleasures.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 3, 2013

Dispelling five myths about stress

Life coaches talk about working toward emotional fitness, as if we can judge our psyches. But some ideas about stress and its risks are simply wrong.
Japan Times
WORLD
Apr 1, 2013

Historian seeks to have Jefferson speak for himself

Thomas Jefferson died 186 years ago. But J. Jefferson Looney still wants the nation's third president to speak for himself.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 31, 2013

Last post: Japan's outdated model is dead; long live the emerging vision

As of today, Roger Pulvers takes leave of Counterpoint, for which he has written weekly since its inception on April 3, 2005. In his final three columns, he set out to consider in turn Japan in the past, present and future. This is the concluding part of that trilogy.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Mar 31, 2013

Anime set to the tune of 3/11 memories

Under an overcast sky, an old farmer plants seeds in a field that had been ravaged by a tsunami. An angel watches his efforts and begs the sun to show itself, which it does, giving the farmer some hope.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 30, 2013

Brazilian chief wields high-tech tools in battle to save tribe, forests

As a small boy in the early 1980s, Almir Surui hunted monkeys with a bow and arrow, wore a loincloth and struggled with Brazil's official language, Portuguese.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Mar 27, 2013

Kite artist Tetsuya Kishida

Japanese kite artist Tetsuya Kishida, 89, has been creating and flying kites since the age of 6. He used to be a salesman for the steel industry and he later sold bonsai. In his late 40s, he finally turned his hobby of painting kites into a profession. His artistic repertoire is inspired by images from...
EDITORIALS
Mar 26, 2013

Preparing for major disasters

As megaquake could strike at any time, the government should immediately begin to implement measures to minimize damage and casualties.
EDITORIALS
Mar 24, 2013

Upholding the right to vote

The Tokyo District Court declares unconstitutional an election law provision that strips voting rights from adults who've had guardians chosen for them.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Mar 23, 2013

Biiiiig baby! — Japanese get taller and skinnier, but not bigger

"How old do you think those kids are?" Asked my father, admiring the cute little American tots standing in line at the ski lift. They were dressed in the puffy ski outfits of the latest fashionable shade of kindergarten pastel, making them look like they were wrapped in cotton candy. Snuggly fit around...
EDITORIALS
Mar 23, 2013

Ceremony insults Okinawans

On April 28 the Abe Cabinet will commemorate the day in 1952 that Japan got its sovereignty back. Don't look for many Okinawans at the ceremony.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 22, 2013

Rise of Jesuit to papacy surprises cerebral order's membership

Pope Francis belongs to the Jesuits, a religious order whose members take an unusual — and at the moment seemingly ironic — vow: not to strive for a higher office.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 21, 2013

A decade after U.S. invasion, Iraq torn between progress and chaos

Ten years after the United States barreled into Iraq with extraordinary force and a perilous lack of foresight, the country is neither the failed state that seemed all but inevitable during the darkest days of the war nor the model democracy the Americans set out to build.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight